"Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library. . . ."
(Chief Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux 1868-1939)

Going to Alaska had been a dream of mine for a long time and in 1998, I finally took the
decision to go there. So my 5th trek with TrekAmerica
came to be the "Klondike", a 26 days trek.
I have divided this Trek in to 3 pages to make it easier to download because of its many photos.

Since it is quite expensive to fly in to Alaska I decided to take the Klondike trek since
this one started from Seattle, Usa and then goes up through Canada; British Columbia and the Yukon,
to Alaska.

I had never been to the Yukon and the nothern parts of BC before so that was part of
the decision as well. It is a long drive though so many hours were spent in the van on
dirtroads and You must be prepare for that if You decide to go on a Trek like this one. At the
same time it is a very beautifully drive so the time is well spent, You get to see a lot of
things.

This is also the trek where You get to see a lot of wildlife, and I mean a LOT. I believe we
saw something every day and of course the Bears are the highlights. We saw quite a few Bears up
close, which You soon are about to see. So on this page there will be a lot of photos, both the
scenery and the wildlife. So lets hit the road!

British Columbia - Vancouver

Carolyn and Marc was the first ones making the effort of cooking to everyone at Dogwood Camping in Vancouver.

We left Seattle early morning on the 24th of August and headed for Canada and Vancouver which
was going to be our first stop on this trip.

We were a quite small group this time (there are
max 13 people in each group) with 8 girls and only one guy, Marc.

The drive to Vancouver is not so long so we had a full day there to explore the city. As usually we
did the tourist things again; Stanley Park, Gastown etc.

A couple of us also went to the big Aquarium in Stanley Park, to have a look at the Orcas,
just in case we weren't able to see any of them up in Alaska, which we of course did, we saw a lot of them.

Orcas and Dolphin in action at the Aquarium in Stanley Park, Vancouver.

Alaska - Hyder

The next day we headed northeast in British Columbia, to Spencers Bridge for those who were
going to do the riverrafting. After that we headed to our campground at Lac La Hache and then
the next day further on to Burns Lake. Those first couple of days we spent a lot of time in
the van, driving, to get us as far up north as possible so there were little time left to do
things except for some stops here and there, but this was also a good time to get to
know each other since we were going to spend so many days together.

On Thursday August 27, we came in to Alaska for the first time and that was indeed a big moment
for all of us.

If You have checked the Alaskan map, You have probably seen that on the coastline west of
British Columbia, there are parts that belong to Alaska as well. So we went to Hyder to get
hyderized at the Glacier Inn to celebrate our first visit to Alaska.

I shouldn't tell You too much about that to spoil the surprise if You are going there sometime,
but the thing is that You go to this Glacier Inn, which is a famous pub, and have their famous
homemade drink. If You make it; You'll get a specially ceritificate for it. The pub itself
is worth a visit since it is very different from other pubs.

Making dinner in Hyder, Alaska.

Before we visited the pub we had dinner, burgers, made on our campfire and the campfire is
something really important during these trips.

On this trip we had it almost every night, and
most of the time we just sat there, chatting before we went to bed.

Nicole, Lisa, Nicole, Marc and Amanda making dinner outside on the campfire, despite the fact that it was actually
raining a bit.

British Columbia - The K'san Indian Village

The K'san Indian Village.

The next day we drove over the border again back in to Canada and BC to get further up north on
the beautifully Cassiar Highway to visit an Indian Village; The K'san Indian Village.

Again for me, I was happy to get an opportunity to visit a place where I could learn more about the American Indians, which has been an interest for me for such a long time.

We spent a few hours here, visiting the area and the museum and it was as always very interesting.

British Columbia - Moose Meadows

After the visit to the village we continued our journey to Moose Meadows, one of the most
peaceful places I have ever been to.

On the way we stopped a few times, one time we stopped to
have a look at some local Indians fishing Salmon in a river.

In Moose Meadows half the group
stayed in a small cabin and the rest of us stayed in our tents, because the weather was very
shifting at the moment.

We could feel that the fall was about to arrive even though we were still
in the month of August. One moment the sun was shining and the next moment a rainstorm came
in on us.

During our first night we even saw that up in the mountains it came snow so suddenly
it had become much colder than before.

Morningview from my tent at Moose Meadows.

Paddling down the river at Moose Meadows - Nicole, Lisa and me and Nicole.

Our 2 nights at Moose Meadows were great. We spend the next day out in Canoes, paddling down
the river. It was brilliant.

We saw some big Grizzly Bear tracks on a beach where we took a
brake and had got instructions to make a lot of noise as soon we went ashore. So we were
banging with our paddles on our canoes and talked loudly to make sure the Grizzlies would go
away.

The tracks we saw on the beach belonged to a Grizzly mother and her two cubs, and You
don't want to have a protecting Grizzly Bear mother nearby, that's for sure.

It was a bit chilly and some rain came.
But we kept warm by having a huge fire every night so chopping wood is something that goes on almost every day.

Yukon - Whitehorse, Dawson City and Top of the World Highway

The next morning we continued to Yukon and Whitehorse. Here some of us went horseback riding
and some did explore the town itself.

Here You can see the famous Klondike ferry that in the
old days took a few gold-diggers from Whitehorse up to Dawson City on the mighty Yukon River.

For the past days of driving we had spent most of the time on dirtroads and the next morning
we continued to Dawson City, still on dirtroads for a while.

The mighty Yukon River.

Dawson City had its golden days during the 1890s during the big goldrush and at the time there
lived a lot of people.

Today the city had just a population of a few thousands, but the town
itself looks much the same. The rules says that if a new house is going to be built today it
must have a certain look, built like in the old days. It is a historical town so we spend the
two days here walking around, looking at the town and visited the museum, which is a very good one.

Happy girls at the viewpoint Midnight Dome at sunset in Dawson City.

The first built casino in Canada is located here; The Diamond Tooth Gertie's Gambling Hall.

On the second evening we went to see a show; Gaslight Follies, and we had a really good time
seeing the show. The highlight of the show was when two old gentlemen in the audience were
brought up on stage to play a little act.

One was dressed up like a bug and the
other one chasing him with a bag net running across the stage while the show was going on.

Everyone was laughing like crazy, especially the wives of the two men.

Our campsite was located on the other side of the river and to get there we always had to take
the ferry.

The campsite itself did not have so many facilities and that is something You have
to be prepared for when You go on a trip like this.

This time we had just a pit toilet, no showers or anything but this is something you get used to pretty quickly.
Usually there are places in the near by town where You can get a shower if necessary.

Autumn colors in Yukon.

Our little cute visiter, the Fox at the campground in Dawson City.

One of the days here we also had a little fox visiting us at the campground and I managed to
get quite close before it took off. But I managed to take a quick photo of him.

On Thursday September 3rd, we finally took of for the border and Alaska but it took a
while before we got there.

We drove on the beautifully Top of the World Highway, dirtroad
again, and it was so pretty during this drive with all the autumn colors.

We stopped many times to take photos and it was so yellow, red and green that it almost hurts the eye.

Me on the Top of the World Highway.

Finally we so arrived to the Alaskan border. We were all extremely excited about beeing here and
got quickly out of the van to take a lot of photos.

This page has been the historical route. Please, follow me over the border to
beautifully and wild Alaska by clicking on the Alaska sign or in the menu below.